


Pride

by sullenhearts



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-12 02:59:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11728101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sullenhearts/pseuds/sullenhearts
Summary: Liv asks if they can all go to Pride together.Canon sucks, so have some fluff to make everything better





	Pride

“I want to go to Pride,” Liv says.

She says it to Aaron’s back while he’s standing at the hob cooking chicken and peppers to make into fajita wraps. Of course she says it while his back is turned. It’s the best way to get truth out of Liv. 

“Alright,” Aaron says. He looks at her, quickly, then back at the wok. 

“Is that all you’re going to say about it?”

“What do you want me to say about it?”

“Have you ever been?”

“You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

“Well, you should go. You and Robert. And me. Only not together because I don’t want you cramping my style, you know what I mean?”

“Right.” Aaron tries to keep his face very neutral, aware of the fact that Liv has come around the kitchen island to lean against the worktop just a few feet down from him. 

“Leeds,” she says. “It’s Leeds Pride next month, and I want to go.” 

*

“Free copy of Bi Community?” a plump black woman asks, holding a copy out towards Robert.

“How did you –“ Robert stutters, stepping back from her. “I’m –“

“Sorry,” she says. “I’m offering them to everyone, flower. No stereotyping about your sexuality intended.”

Robert softens, drops Aaron’s hand, and takes the magazine from her. “Apologies are all mine. Sorry. I am… bisexual. I just thought you – knew, somehow.”

“Maybe I just wanted you on my team,” the woman says, and winks. 

Robert laughs properly at this, pleased at the compliment. “Any time, love.” 

“You need to calm down,” Aaron says as they walk away. “She wasn’t being nasty.”

“I know,” Rob says, rolling the magazine so he can stick it in his inside pocket. “I’m just not used to all this, you know.”

“Well, neither am I.”

“I know. You need to calm down, too, yeah? No one can get you. The place is full of queers _and_ I’m here.”

“Big opinion of yourself,” Aaron says, but he stops and kisses Robert anyway, letting the spring sunshine fall on his face.

Someone wolf whistles behind him, then says, “Quite fancy your one, mate.”

Aaron turns, grins at the buff mid 40s guy who said it, and then turns back to Robert, who is blushing fiercely. 

“He might have been talking to me,” Robert says. “He could mean you.”

“Yeah, sweetheart,” Aaron says, taking Robert’s hand to carry on down the street. “You keep telling yourself that.” 

They head into the food area, where Robert grabs two cheese samples on tiny crackers, and slips one into Aaron’s mouth gently. There’s a bar selling cask ales, and Robert steps towards it. “Pint?”

“Come on, we can drink that at home,” Aaron says. “Let’s get something else.”

“Like what?”

“Like…” Aaron turns, looking at all the stalls spread along the street. “Gin?”

“What kind?”

Aaron starts to pull Robert along, turning as he does so, grinning at Robert. “Well let’s taste a few and see which one we like best.”

Robert chooses an elderflower one, and Aaron chooses something called Mermaid’s Tears. 

“Possibly painful,” Robert says, clinking glasses with him. 

It tastes alright, but it’s nothing Aaron would choose again. When they’ve finished Robert looks back at the bottles of gin.

“Nope,” Aaron says. “Next tent.”

The next tent is called Rainbow Cocktails and it does exactly that – seven cocktails, in each colour of the rainbow, and one called a Skittles Surprise. Rob orders that one and they both watch the pretty, dark skinned barman make something complicated in five layers. Aaron orders a Blue Meanie which is verging on green, but which is cold and sweet and slushy, so it hits the spot just right. It is also extremely strong. Aaron pulls a face. 

Robert tastes it. “Woah.” 

“A few of them and I’ll be anybody’s.”

“Is that a promise?” Robert leans over for a kiss, and then another one, and another, and even as he’s leaning in Aaron looks around, checks the surroundings, constantly looking for the threat, but there isn’t one, he isn’t threatened here.

They’re safe. Aaron kisses back. He even moves his seat closer, leans into his husband more, lets his hand linger on Robert’s thigh. 

He knows they’re pretty lucky that at home no one would hassle them, well, not without asking for a nutting from Cain, but it’s still pretty nice to be in a space especially for them. 

When they kiss again, both their mouths are cold from the frozen cocktails, and Robert tastes of strawberry and orange, generally sweet. 

They stay for a while in that tent, tasting, between them, each of the seven cocktails. Robert’s favourite one is the Skittles one, which he orders last and proclaims it best decisively, sucking hard on the straw.

Aaron laughs. “Typical. Can’t just decide on one flavour.”

“You’re very rude,” Robert says. He’s sitting up very, very straight on his barstool, a giveaway sign that he’s drunk as fuck and trying not to sway horribly. He tries to look annoyed but then his face creases, splitting open into a beautiful, wide smile.

“I love you,” Aaron says. “I bloody fucking love you.”

“I bloody fucking love you, too,” Robert says, still smiling. Then he sways, and widens his eyes. “I think we’re drunk.”

Aaron tries to sober up before they get to Liv, tries to breathe in cool air, but it doesn’t help much. She texts and says what she’s near, and they head over to the family area. There’s a sandpit, where babies and toddlers are making sandcastles and a huge mess, a few fairground rides, and six huge trampolines surrounded by black netting. Liv is on one of the corner trampolines, giggling and unsteady on her feet. Next to her, someone a couple of years older than her has their hand on her back, and they count to three, bouncing the both of them up and down, and on three she somersaults, coming back to rest on her feet a little uncertainly. She’s so happy that Aaron almost doesn’t want to interrupt her, but they’ve got to get back, they need to catch the last bus because it’s Sunday service out to Emmerdale and that leaves in about half an hour.

She says bye to the person who was helping her, hugging them in, and then bounces across the other trampolines to get to the gap in the netting and the steps down to the ground. “Did you see me?”

“Yeah, looked good.”

She stumbles a bit on the hard ground. Robert catches her. “Alex was helping me.” She waves with her free hand and they walk off all together, Liv in the middle. 

“Can we come next year?”

“Yeah,” Aaron says, smiling over at Robert. “I reckon we probably could.”

*

“You didn’t ask why I wanted to go,” Liv says later when she comes down from her bath, hair all spread damply across her shoulders. She’s wearing the ratty bathrobe that lives on the back of the bathroom door. It’s not hers, it’s not even Aaron’s. It might be Chas’, although it’s not her usual style. Aaron is pretty sure Robert wore it at one point, too. It needs chucking in the bin but every time he suggests it Liv shrieks and Robert says he can’t possibly. 

Aaron puts another bite of beans on toast in this mouth. In the kitchen Robert is making cheese toasties and salad, since that’s what Liv wanted to eat, but Aaron needed something faster to mop up all the alcohol. He might go for another round, there’s beans left. “Rob? Put some more toast in, will you?”

“Coming up,” Robert says. 

“You didn’t _ask_ ,” Liv says, so Aaron looks at her. 

“You didn’t tell me.”

“You’re supposed to ask.”

“No, no I’m not. If you want to tell me something, then tell me. I’m not prying.”

“Okay,” she says reasonably. Thanks.”

“I got sick of people asking stuff about me, that’s all.”

Liv nods. “I’m not gay.”

“Alright.”

She comes and sits down next to him, pulls her feet up on to the sofa. She’s wearing these ridiculous pink fluffy socks which aren’t at all her style but which she came home from Ireland with. Sandra must have bought them. It’s sweet, Aaron thinks. She’s a sweet kid. He’s missed her. 

“I started wanting to go because of all the stuff about families,” she says. “You know, they say all families are valid and all of that.”

“Yeah, course. Our family is still a family.” 

She nods again. “Mental as it might be.”

“Yeah.” Aaron thinks about making a joke but it doesn’t feel right, it’s not the time. “Yeah, even though it’s not perfect.”

“Far from perfect.”

“I’m sorry,” Aaron says, touching her hand.

She shakes her head just once. Her hair is drying, wisps curling around the face, much lighter than the rest of it. She’s just perfect. She makes the family on the way to perfect. He puts his arm around her. 

“Anyway,” she says. “I could be something other than gay.”

“And are ya?” Aaron tries to keep his tone light. 

“I don’t know.”

“It’s okay to not know.”

“Yeah, I get that. Just sort of wish I did.”

“Well, who are the people you’re into? Work backwards from there.”

“Not really into anyone, really.” She picks at a thread on the knee of her pyjamas. “Like, Alex who was on the trampolines, they were really good looking and stuff, but I’m not sure whether I’d want to sleep with ‘em.”

“You don’t have to sleep with anyone.” Don’t make the joke, Aaron tells himself. Don’t make light of your sister pouring her heart out to you. 

“Yeah, I know. Just don’t think I’m that bothered about any of it. I think I might just keep myself out of anything until I meet someone I really do want.”

Aaron squeezes her. “That’s okay too.”

She doesn’t say anything else. Robert comes in with another plate of beans on toast. 

“How did you know?” Aaron asks, taking it. “I only asked for toast.”

“Cos I know you,” Robert says, and drops a kiss on the top of Aaron’s head. He bustles back into the kitchen and comes out with two plates, one of which he passes to Liv. “Voila.” Then he leans down and kisses the top of her head, too. 

Aaron moves up, squidging himself into the middle seat so that Robert can sit down. Robert offers him a bite of cheese toastie and Aaron takes it, then smiles sweetly at Robert, and goes back for another bite.


End file.
